from the also-jabs-public-in-eyes-with-godawful-scans dept

The ODNI continues to comply with court orders from FOIA lawsuits but its compliance is in letter only. Declassifying documents the way the ODNI does isn't helping further the debate on privacy vs. security or making the government's arguments for surveillance dragnets any more clear.

First up, the FBI's report on the maintenance and use of [REDACTED] databases. About the only thing surviving the redaction knife is a few footnotes which indicate this document has something to do with the pen register/trap and trace bastardization that turned a targeted surveillance technique with a low legal barrier to entry into a broad, untargeted dragnet with a low legal barrier to entry. (PDF link.)

But this is how most of the "declassified" report looks.

Right-margin barely large enough to contain the exemptions.

The unexpected use of black in a sea of white redactions.

All of the above is in addition to several pages that were withheld in their entirety, without even being given the chance to be redacted into uselessness.

What remains is mainly footnotes. One supplies a description of PR/TT surveillance pulled directly from the US code. One references CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act). One footnote points out that the FBI is not allowed to "affirmatively search" content gathered incidentally by this program, unless, of course, (truck-sized loophole ahead) it needs to "prevent harm to national security."

In total, the document is of zero value to anyone anywhere. No information was freed, nor will it be -- not if intelligence officials have the final say for redactions. The redactions can be challenged, but that's in EPIC's hands.

The second document, a declaration in support of the PR/TT program by CIA director George Tenet, contains more readable info… but just barely. There's a lot of redactions in here as well but the main struggle is reading the remaining text which looks like it was rolled off a myopic, 75-year-old mimeograph. (PDF link.)

Most of Tenet's declaration revolves around threats the CIA was tracking, none of which are allowed past the censor, despite it being a decade later. The name Al-Qaeda appears every so often, and there's hints of a discussion revolving around surveillance tactics and government actions related to the 9/11 attacks, but most of this information is withheld as well.

Interestingly, Tenet notes that the CIA (and other agencies) have picked up signals that signal a "US strike" in the "next four months," possibly in conjunction with the 2004 elections. It also cautions that being too effective may be accelerating terrorists' attack plans, with detainments and other factors possibly causing terrorism leaders to believe their operations are compromised.

Tenet declares all the redacted surveillance programs to have been essential in disrupting terrorists' plans and/or possibly pushing attack timetables forward, noting that the PR/TT has been invaluable in lots of things that are completely redacted. In conclusion, please give the NSA/FBI PR/TT dragnet privileges.

So much for transparency. Even a discontinued surveillance program is subject to page after page of complete redaction, including documents discussing threats over a decade old whose attacks and plans were either thwarted or never came to fruition. The word "declassify" generally is taken to mean a release of information previously withheld, but in the ODNI's hands, all it means is the release of as little as possible.

from the how-much-black-ink-will-they-use-up? dept

Last month, we noted that, while it was known that a tech company had fought back against a surveillance effort by the government and lost, it hadn't yet been revealed who that company was. The NY Times then revealed that it was Yahoo!, and it involved whether or not Yahoo! would be involved in PRISM. Yahoo tried to fight it, lost, and had to comply -- but the details (of course) remained entirely sealed. It appears that's changing. Yahoo! has been asking the government if it can reveal more info, and eventually the government (at the very least) allowed Yahoo to admit that it was the party in the case. After that, Yahoo asked FISC if the ruling could be declassified, and the court has now
told the government to review the ruling to figure out what can be declassified.

The Government shall conduct a declassification review of this Court's
Memorandum Opinion of April 25, 2008, and (2) the legal briefs submitted by the parties to this
Court in this matter. After such review, the Court anticipates publishing that Memorandum
Opinion in a form that redacts any properly classified information.

Of course, given the government's history of over-redacting, I fully expect a document with a ridiculous amount of black ink applied (invest now in black ink!). However, I do wonder if this is part of the various FISC judges realizing that there's been a fairly strong outcry against their secret court with a big rubber stamp.